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Playschool fumbles something YGG-related
G'Day Mate! Last month, the longest running children's show in the history of broadcasting - Playschool, aired a special episode about the benefits of sleeping and napping. Nicholas and Rachel, the show's presenters, helped their toys soothe down for sleep with some crafts and stories. WAIT A SECOND, YGG had a special episode similar to the concept in its first year. You know, I think YGG is aimed at older kids than Playschool, but I'm maybe wrong about the age groups. What do you think? Both shows are for the same age group! Besides, I never liked Playschool that much. I used to find myself bored sitting through all those boring presenters. To be honest, Playschool is the type of program that a kid would have watched to put their mind off what was going on in the home anyway! While I generally viewed Playschool as entertainment, YGG was the real show to learn life lessons from! Playschool basically becomes entertainment once you learn the stuff they teach. Of course, in its prime, I think it was very good entertainment. Maybe it's because Australia learned the alphabet at an earlier age than it did in 1966. When I watched YGG when I was 8 or 9 year olds, the YGG segments got more entertaining because I understood when they had a problem, they’d burst out into song about it, same with the action songs from Season 1. As for YGG, I think it was primarily aimed at pre-school and maybe reception age children. But I do think that YGG definitely has more life lessons for older children and even adults. YGG didn’t premiere yet, but I was (obviously) a huge fan of Playschool when I was a baby. At the time, I always assumed YGG season 1 was for older kids than the other seasons (as Devon said) and when I had outgrown Playschool. However, Brian Jameson has posted several times here (and said in an interview) that YGG was for a younger audience than Playschool. Brian: if you are still posting here, did anyone (such as Lance, the "FCI suits" as you call them, Cbeebies, etc) ever officially say that YGG was intended for a younger audience than Playschool? Or is that just your own personal opinion? One other possibility is that maybe the target age group of both shows could have changed over time. Maybe I saw YGG episodes that were targeted to an older age group than the Playschool pisodes I've seen. I don't know how many Playschool episodes Brian has seen (I assume she's seen most, if not all YGG episodes), so maybe she saw ones that were targeted to older kids? - Madison Playschool definitely has a younger and narrower target age group now than it did in the 70's and 80's. That's a big part of the reason why a lot of the attempts to make the show entertaining to adults has gone by the wayside, in favor of really cutesy stuff like Celebrity Covers and Story Time. It's funny to me to read that you watched the shows in the 2010's. I watched the shows in the early 2010's as God intended. I thought Playschool was for older children, of course that was in the 2000's. I regularly watched the show until I was 9. Yo Gabba Gabba started out as a pilot episode in 2006, and was made by Christian Jacobs, the "MC Bat Commander" (who presented Fun with Phonics on NBeebies). I must have watched Gabba then, but I did watch in the 10's, and it definitely was a baby show, but I still watched it. I felt by the 10's that both Playschool and Yo Gabba Gabba lost some punch and their grittiness, and as for Kiruna, there have been many disabled presenters on children’s tv. I agree with what you are saying? But I am still curious to hear if what Brian has said about the age groups was official information (that we may choose to respectfully disagree with) or if it was his own opinion (which, again, we may choose to respectfully disagree with). - Megan I think it could have made more sense to have Nick Jr actually AIR Playschool during YGG's lifespan, because as I have experienced throughout my life, it was labelled by many people as a "baby show," and if anyone over the target age was still watching it, they would get made fun of, and/or laughed at. I always thought that YGG was for the same age group, but now that I think of it, it may have been for a slightly older audience, so it would be a good lead-in to Play-away, which was specifically meant for kids who were too old for Playschool. Brian Cant alongside others presented the series as of Playschool, and had very similar hip music styles as Playschool, and a very similar structure. - Lauren "Unicorn" Fretz Back when you were younger and watching YGG did you feel like there was competition between the two shows? YGG would have served as a strong lead-in to Sesame Street. If Scott and Christian have allowed more merchandise to be produced towards children and not for the so called "Mission statement of FCI" - do you think the program's popularity would have skyrocketed much like Playschool? - Nathan I never viewed the shows as rivals. We'd talk about TV shows we liked, and although we all too old to really think that either show was cool, Playschool was talked about far more often than YGG - that's because YGG got cancelled and lost its memory. I'd bring up YGG sometimes and instead of the enthusiastic responses that reminiscing about Playschool got, I usually got responses like "Oh Yes. Wasn't there a green stripy guy on the show, I loved the Jack Black episode". There was affection, but mostly vague memories, as if not more than a handful of programmes had been seen. So I guess it kind of made YGG seem like the underdog in my mind, which made me feel more affection for it and kind of created a rivalry, however imagined it might have been. - Maddie I didn't really sense a rivalry either - in fact, in a way I think both shows complemented each other. Although there were obvious differences, both shows had segments meant to appeal to grown ups too. The characters in both shows were often taught life lessons and in solving problems. Both shows had fun animated segments and great music. I certainly enjoyed watching both shows, which were shown one after another on ABC4Kids where I lived. I certainly would have enjoyed having Gabba toys (like those long-lost books!), but I do admire the fact that Gabba focussed more on the show itself than in producing merchandise. And yes, if you're an old-school Playschool fan, please try to get books about its history! I think the two shows stem from one source -- a reaction to most kids' programming of the time -- but the two reactions were polar opposites. Playschool said "Hey, this stuff is holding kids' attention...let's use the same techniques to educate them." Scott Schultz and Christian Jacobs said "This stuff is not how it should be. I will make a show that reflects how I think it ought to be." Two shows with a more or less common goal -- to create quality children's programming -- but with totally different viewpoints and approaches. I loved them both. Category:Forums